{"id":30586,"date":"2021-02-24T19:07:54","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T17:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/?p=30586"},"modified":"2021-02-24T19:07:54","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T17:07:54","slug":"deleting-the-camshafts-from-a-miata-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/2021\/02\/24\/deleting-the-camshafts-from-a-miata-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"Deleting The Camshafts From A Miata Engine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The idea of camless automotive engines has been around for a while but so far has been limited to prototypes and hypercars. [Wesley Kagan] has been working on a DIY version for a while, and successfully converted a Mazda Miata to a camless valve system<\/a>. See the videos after the break.<\/p>\n

There have been many R&D projects by car manufacturers to eliminate camshafts<\/a> in order to achieve independent valve timing, but the technology has only seen commercial use on Koenigsegg hypercars. [Wesley] started this adventure on a cheap single cylinder Harbor Freight engine<\/a>, and proved the basic concept, so he decided to move up to an actual car. He first sourced a junkyard engine head to convert, and use as a drop-in replacement for the head on the complete project car. An off-the-shelf double-acting pneumatic cylinder is mounted over each valve and connected to the valve stem with a custom adaptor. The double-acting cylinder allows the valve to be both opened and closed with air pressure, but [Wesley] still added the light-weight return spring to keep the valve closed if there is any problem with the pneumatic system.<\/p>\n

The controller is an Arduino, and it receives a timing signal from a factory crankshaft and operates the pneumatic solenoid valves via MOSFETs. After mounting the new head and control box into the Miata, it took a couple of days of tuning to get the engine running smoothly. Initial tests were done using the compressor in his garage, but this was replaced with a small compressor and air tank mounted in the Miata’s boot for the driving tests.<\/p>\n

Although the pneumatic system works well for short test drives, the compressor is quite noisy and adds a couple of points of failure. [Wesley] is also working on a solenoid actuated system, which would require a lot more current from the battery and alternator, but he believes it’s a better long-term solution compared to compressed air. However, he is still struggling to find solenoids with the required specifications.<\/span><\/p>\n

[Wesley] will be open-sourcing all his designs and code, with the hope that others will be able to modify and improve the design. The results could be very interesting, so we’re hoping a community develops around these camless conversions.<\/p>\n